Zooplankton sampling

Abstract

Ever since the early days of plankton research, estimating the abundance of plankton organisms has been one of the most crucial and difficult problems. While the need was felt to compare indices of the abundance of certain groups of plankton organisms or of total plankton biomass and to study their variations in space and time; accuracy of those attempts was seriously hampered both by patchiness in plankton distribution and by uncertainties with regard to efficiency and selectivity of the various types of prankton gear. The increasing number of international expeditions with ships of various nations during recent years called for uniformity in sampling devices and techniques. The introduction of the Indian Ocean Standard Net for the International Indian Ocean Expedition. was a very successful step in that direction (Currie, 1963).